Tag Archives: Helmets

Virginia Tech is participating in a new, landmark $30 million national effort sponsored by the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the U.S. Department of Defense to combat concussions among college athletes and active service military personnel.

The NCAA-U.S. Department of Defense initiative funds the most comprehensive study of concussion and head impact exposure ever conducted. It will enroll an estimated 25,000 male and female NCAA student-athletes during a three-year study period. Virginia Tech will focus on athletes participating in various sports, including football, women’s soccer, men’s soccer, and women’s lacrosse.

From Pop Warner to the pros, football players will soon strap on their helmets for another hard-hitting season on the gridiron. Those hard hits can be dangerous, even deadly. Helmet companies claim new products can protect your kids from concussions, but do they really work?

The big helmet-to-helmet hits send football fans to their feet. The problem is that the hits also send players to the hospital. The concussion discussion dominates safety speak at every level.

Terry O’Neil unsuccessfully tried to steer the audience in an accurate direction.

The question from the former New Orleans Saints executive to those in the Palisades Ballroom in UCLA’s Carnesale Commons on Tuesday afternoon was, “How many concussions occurred on NFL practice fields last season?”

He began counting down from 400. The lower he went, the louder the audience voiced he was counting in the wrong direction. O’Neil appeased the disbelieving audience, asking about numbers as high as 600 before ending the exchange with a thud.

The NCAA released Monday new guidelines for concussion safety, including limiting live contact football practices to two per week during the season.

The guidelines address contact at football practices, independent medical care for all athletes, and best practices to diagnose and manage concussions. The NCAA, which faces multiple concussion lawsuits, worked with the College Athletic Trainers’ Society, several medical organizations, multiple conferences and the American Football Coaches Association to create guidelines, not rules.

Optimist Youth Football says it has replaced hundreds of helmets after a KTVB report on football helmet ratings and concussions.

In original stories that aired in February, local high school coaches, trainers and sporting goods dealers talked about a Virginia Tech study that indicates certain football helmets may cut concussion risks.

A lineman who plays in high school, college and the pros may retire with 10,0000 sub-concussive hits, none of which were diagnosed, none of which he is aware of. The aggregate of these hits produce brain damage much more severe than being knocked out three times.

Prominent neurologists and researchers like Robert Cantu, Julian Bailes, Kevin Guskiewicz, Kristen Willeumier and David Hovda report that three or more concussions may lead to exponentially higher rates of Alzheimer’s, ALS, dementia, chronic traumatic encephalopathy and depression. This is different from other injuries. Brain function provides memory, judgment, and personality — what it means to be a sentient human being. That is why we are forming a new foundation, “Athletes Speak,” with players advocating awareness and prevention.

The National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) applauds and encourages the growing research in the area of concussion protection for athletes, including the work released this month by Virginia Tech. Coaches, consumers and parents should be aware that while the STAR rating system suggests the purchase of specific football helmets, scientific evidence does not support the claim that a particular helmet brand or model is more effective in reducing the occurrence of concussive events.

Brain injuries in youth sports have been on the rise in recent years, alarming many parents about the lifelong effects of concussions. The number of brain injuries linked to American youth increased 62 percent between the years of 2001 and 2009, with reported incidents around 250,000 in 2009 (Obama, NFL, NCAA Get Behind Research into Concussions in Youth Sports: Insurance Journal, May 29, 2014).